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Ryan Tan : Behind the Scenes of Creativity

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Hello Cut and Pasters! We hope you enjoyed your holidays and New Year, counting down with family and friends into 2016. Looking at your past year, can you remember all those elaborate parties and events you went to? Ever wonder who’s in charge of the behind the scenes planning? Who creates the video and print advertisements to capture your attention?

Meet Ryan Tan, founder and team member of Singapore-based creative studio, OuterEdit. Ryan was born in Singapore and raised in the US. With ties to both Eastern and Western cultures, Ryan has familiarized himself with various values and beliefs across the globe.Raised from a humble upbringing, he was taught to live simply. Ryan comments, “the things we couldn’t find or afford, my parents would always challenge my brother and I to find ways to make them ourselves.” In a way, this drive and self-hunger has been the motto Ryan embodies in his work today. It was during his school years where Ryan knew his future needed to involve serving others through creative arts in some way.

Today, Ryan considers Singapore his home. As every Singaporean male must do, National Service, serving the country’s military, was a meaningful time where he learned a great deal about loyalty, friendship, and unity. Ultimately, Ryan says, “it reinforced my sense of pride for my country, and commitment to be a contribution to it, even if it’s in the smallest way.” It was 2.5 years of life learning which he would never trade for anything.

We asked Ryan to tell us a typical Singapore stereotype he could debunk, and as much as we were hoping to hear another rumor about Singapore’s chewing gum regulations, Ryan voiced out on a harder issue regarding how there is a misconception that Singapore is blanketed with rules and regulations, which suffocates innovation, creativity, and design. While there is some truth in this, Ryan claims, “Singapore to me is a place where everything works smoothly, and has bred for itself it’s own gene of creativity which is becoming evermore dynamic day by day.”

Ryan’s favorite part of the City-Country-Island is the freedom to transport himself through so many cultures, sub-cultures, traditions, high-rise skyscrapers, food and nature scapes all within a 45-minute radius.

Under Asia’s humid night sky, engines roar at 200mph, Formula 1 drivers come from all over the world to race on Singapore’s elaborate Grand Prix, weaved into the heart of The Lion City. Arguably Singapore’s biggest event of the year, we can thank Ryan for all the hype which captures our eyes.

To fill you in, OuterEdit did not always start off as a Creative Studio, it’s core creation remains centered around the idea of wanting to unify the world of design and art on a smaller scale by collaborating across the globe. T-shirts were a suitable canvas for portraying this, and soon a team of two people launched OuterEdit, a grassroots t-shirt brand. Collaborating with and in big name cities like Barcelona, Berlin, Paris, Tokyo, London, Kuala Lumpur, and Singapore, they realized t-shirts were not the only thing that their collaborative approach was capable of. Soon enough, slowly testing the waters, a creative studio with a primary focus on inter-industry creative collaborations was born. Ryan is very humble in this new chapter of his work and is thankful for what OuterEdit has evolved into today. Commenting on his company’s growth, “I feel every step we take, whether it’s forwards or backwards, is a tremendous learning opportunity to get better at all that we do. Today, we are still a lean team of four and we’re humbled to have worked on projects ranging from holistic brand strategy development, to print advertising, film making, publication design, art installations, illustrations and the design of VVIP hospitality suites for a range of ambitious clients and communities in Singapore and abroad.”

Ryan’s love for the creative arts grew from his background as a high school art major and self-taught graphic designer, and while he’s not working he enjoys traveling, just like all of us. One of his favorite travel destinations on his list of many he has been to is Tokyo. When traveling he loves to see how developed places have dealt with maturity and urbanization in their own unique ways. Ryan states, “It says a lot about who they are, where they have come from, and their spirit to not only survive, but thrive as well.”

Ryan’s style is mainly for comfort and garments built to last. As you may guess, Ryan enjoys wearing t-shirts because there is always one for every occasion at play or at work.

Looking for some creativity help for yourself? Reach out to Ryan to get the job done.